You've heard the stories of software and technology
companies starting out in garages--only to grow into
multimillion-dollar companies within a span of a few years. But
this phenomenon isn't limited to the tech world. For many
entrepreneurs, working out of a garage allows them to save money as
they follow their dreams. For Melissa Gitelman, creator of The
Girls, and founder of The T Company, starting, running and staying
in her garage has allowed her to earn projected sales of $2 million
this year in licensing alone, as well as $300,000 in sales of her
novelty T-shirts. Her merchandise--including handbags, scarves and
bath and body items--is sold at Nordstrom and more than 800 fashion
boutiques and specialty stores.

Self-funded, Gitelman hired artists to put onto paper the
designs she created in her head, giving them detailed instructions
on how each "Girl" should look. She outsourced production
and warehousing, and continues to be the company's sole
employee.

After the T-shirts were featured on the first page of In
Style magazine's December gift guide in 1999, sales for The
Girls skyrocketed. Gitelman decided to start licensing The Girls
property in June 2001, adding to her breadth of products, which now
range from cosmetic bags to baseball caps. "Basically, I run
two companies," says Gitelman. "I run the licensing
[business], which doesn't require anything but a file cabinet
and a phone, because it's all about generating ideas for my
licensees to use. And I run the T-shirt company." Gitelman
remains homebased, occasionally shipping last-minute orders from
her garage, and working from a converted den.

Like Gitelman, Rodger Owens had a specific reason for leaving
the packaging company he'd worked at most of his life to start
a snack foods company from his family's garage at age 40.
"I was bored, frankly," says Rodger Owens. "And I
thought, 'If I'm going to work this hard for someone else,
I might as well do it for myself.' "

Yet while Gitelman decided to continue operations from her
garage, Owens didn't stay in his garage for long. He roasted
nuts there for a year before moving into a 600-square-foot
converted carriage house in Yardley, Pennsylvania. The 1700s
carriage house was modified slightly to meet health-department
codes as well as store the assorted nuts, popcorn and cheese
spreads Owens manufactured, packaged and sold to local delis.
Noticing he had some extra space available, he decided to buy whole
coffee beans, along with a couple of grinders. The coffee business
soared, and he decided to change the focus of the company, figuring
it might be easier for his customers to consume a pound of coffee
every week than a pound of nuts.

It was a fateful move. From its humble beginnings in 1982, Bucks
County Coffee Co. has grown to 42 retail stores/coffee shops, more
than 400 employees and a 40,000-square-foot building headquarters.
He expects sales for 2002 to exceed $15 million. The company
continues to be wholly owned by Owens, and he's never had to
bring in outside money to grow. "It's still a small
business, but I'm delighted with being my own boss," says
Owens, who plans to continue expanding throughout the East
Coast.